It was well past midday when he escaped the slide; it was the beginning of night when, at the conclusion of that first heroic march, he reached Johnstown. With hunger his stomach cleaved to his back, and his knees were weak with the labor.
Stamping through the snow to the hotel he asked the idlers around the stove, “Has any of you gents seen a man named Pete Reeve pass through this town?”
They looked at him in amazement. He had closed the door behind him, and now, with his battered hat pushed high on his head, he seemed taller than the entrance—taller and as wide, a mountain of a man. The efforts of the march had collected a continual frown on his forehead, and as he peered about from face to face, no one for a moment was able to answer, but each looked to his companion.
It was the proprietor who answered finally. Talk was his commercial medium and staff of life. “What sort of a looking man, captain?”
Bull blinked at him. He was not used to honorary epithets such as this, and he searched the face of the proprietor carefully to detect mockery. To his surprise the other showed signs of what Bull dimly recognized as fear. Fear of him—of Bull Hunter!
“The way you look at me,” said the other and laughed uneasily, “I figure it’s pretty lucky that I ain’t this here Pete Reeve. That so, boys?”
The boys joined in the laughter, but they kept it subdued, their eyes upon the giant at the door. He was leaning against the wall, and the sight of his outspread hand was far from reassuring.
But Bull went on to describe his man. “Not very big; hands like the claws of a bird’s; iron-gray hair; quick ways.” That was Uncle Bill’s description.
“Sure he’s been here,” said the owner. “I recognized him right off. He was through about dusk. He came over the mountains and just got past the summit, he said, before the storm hit. Lucky, eh?” He looked at the battered coat of Bull. “Kind of appears like you mightn’t of been so lucky?”
“Me?” asked Bull gently. “Nope. I was at the timberline on the other side about daybreak today.”
There was a sudden and chilly silence; men looked at one another. Obviously no man could have traveled that distance between dawn and dark, but it was as well not to express disbelief to a man who could tell a lie as big as his body.
“I got to eat,” said Bull.
The proprietor jumped out of his chair. “I can fix you up, son.”
He led the way, Bull following with his enormous strides, and, as the floor creaked under him, the eyes of the others jerked after him, stride by stride. It was beginning to seem possible that this man had done what he said he had done. When the door slammed behind him and his steps went creaking through the room beyond, a mutter of a hum arose around the stove.
As a matter of fact it was the beginning of the great legend that was finally to bulk around the name of the big man. And it was fitting that the huge figure of Bull Hunter should have come upon the attention of men in this way, descending out of the storm and the mountains.